Packing light: My 50th birthday present to myself

My carry on backpack, with sneakers so you can get a sense of the size! In addition to a purse, this is all I am traveling with for 2.5 weeks!

I’ve always been an over-packer when traveling, due to being concerned that I might need something at my fingertips when across the globe, usually in rural Turkey (where I’ve travelled 12 times with way too much luggage!).

However, as I approached my 50th birthday, realizing that the bucket list must be implemented post-haste, I decided to be kind to my body and my mind via packing light.

In order to test out this new modus operandi, Murat and I decided to journey around mostly northern Scotland with good friends. This trip’s geography necessitates packing for early springtime with lots of rain and at its worst 40°F weather on the Shetland Islands to the potential for 80°F days in the city of Glasgow. A perfect challenge!

Being a researcher, I began this process by looking into how women pack light. There are a plethora of blog posts and even blog sites on this topic, but my favorite is: Her Packing List. Through this site, I found my holy grail of a bag, the PacSafe Vibe 40L Weekender Backpack – which allows for way more than a weekend’s worth of stuff! It also boasts a steel mesh eco-skeleton under the “skin” of the pack and in the straps to stop anyone keen to slash or cut it. It is comfortable to wear for me at 5 feet, 9 inches, although I hear the straps are too long for women who are on the shorter side. I also bought a matching hobo bag as a purse. Don’t judge, I like matching things.

These are all the toiletries I am taking with me for 2 weeks. I decanted my hair product into a travel-sized container, and other than my deodorant/anti-perspirant, all items are travel-sized. The ziplock bag is sitting on a quick-dry travel washcloth from Lunatec.